For anyone who may have lost track of my silly timeline, in the middle of last chapter we made it full circle to the opening scene. Now we enter uncharted waters...

You guys have been wonderful with the reviews, I can't tell you how awesome it feels to get so much good feedback! Also, some of your comments are making me rethink my plot trajectory...that's all I'll say on that matter for now. (Keep it coming though, you're a big help)

PS sorry in advance for naming Dr. Hilton 'Shelly', I realized a while ago that for people who read stupid fast like I do, relying on first and last letter cues for their words, its going to be hard to keep Shelly and Scully separate. I tried to change her name, but I just really didn't like anything else. So read slowly. And enjoy!

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As they wheeled her through the double doors and down the short hall to the private room that Dr. Hilton had procured, Scully continued to cry softly, never falling fully unconscious; the sedative she'd been given was unfortunately not strong enough to put her out. She was, however, helpless to fight back as they transferred her to a bed and re-strapped her wrists. All the while, Mulder bit his tongue, knowing that any comforting words he spoke would be misconstrued in her mind and would only serve to compound on her misery.

When Scully was secured in the small, private room, hooked up to a saline IV and a heart monitor, Mulder stepped outside, leaning against the wall and burying his face in his hands. A moment later, Dr. Hilton followed, closing the door behind them.

For several long moments, neither of them spoke or moved. Finally, Mulder took a deep breath and straightened up. He wore a haunted expression, his eyes puffy with unshed tears as he turned to the doctor. Shelly looked pretty shaken up as well. She put a hand on his arm.

"That was hard," she said quietly. "Harder than I thought it would be. But hopefully the worst is over. I'm going to need your help in there for the next few hours still. Are you going to be ok?"

Physically, he was far from ok. As they spoke, Shelly could swear the dark circles under his eyes had grown deeper, and his skin had taken on a chalky pallor that she knew was due to the blood loss and absolute lack of sustenance he'd experienced over the past day. The man was dead on his feet, but she knew that he wouldn't be stopped by it, not until he knew his partner was safe.

She meant mentally; seeing Scully break down at the half-false memory of shooting and killing him had been almost too much for him to handle.

Mulder met her gaze with heavy eyes. "I'll have to be, won't I? We're all she's got right now."

He brushed past her, back into Scully's room, putting a grateful hand on her shoulder as he passed. Shelly stood in the hall for another moment before following.

XXX

Between the sedative Dr. Hilton had administered and what was hopefully the final grip of the mind-control drug, Scully lay weak and delirious on the bed. They'd moved her to an actual hospital bed, but the straps around her wrists remained. Next to the bed, an array of screens beeped and flashed, monitoring her vitals.

Dr. Hilton flitted about the room, checking the monitors and marking her findings on a chart. Her face was tight with concentration, and she didn't speak to Mulder besides to ask for his help holding Scully still when she needed to draw blood.

Occasionally she'd ask for him to grab her something from across the room or to call off readings from the monitors, but otherwise he sat in a chair beside the bed, holding his partner's hand.

Mostly too far gone to understand where she was or who was with her, Scully simply accepted the comforting gesture, squeezing his hand back tightly. Or maybe she didn't consciously acknowledge it at all, and her grip was an instinctive response the trauma her body had been through. Either way, it put Mulder's heart a little more at ease.

After a couple hours of this, Dr. Hilton beckoned to Mulder from across the bed. He stood, anxiously awaiting instruction.

"I think I have a notion of how to treat this," Shelly started, and Mulder noticed a hint of apprehension in her voice. "But her body may have a bad reaction to the drug I'm going to give her. I need you to be ready, Mulder, in case we need to resuscitate her. Dana may go into cardiac arrest."

Mulder swallowed. "What are the chances that we won't be able to get her back?"

Her answering look was anything but reassuring. "I don't know," she said quietly. "I'm operating entirely on speculation here. I only know that we have no other choice." She paused, taking a shaky breath. "I can't explain it, but whatever this is in her system, it's changing. Instead of wearing off, it's starting to affect her brain in new ways. I'm afraid that if we don't act now, we may lose her anyway."

Mulder felt like something had struck him hard in the chest, forcing all the air from his lungs. Unable to speak, he nodded. Whatever happened now, he had no choice but to trust her.

The tension in the room was thick as Shelly went about prepping everything that might be needed if Scully's heart stopped. Beads of cold sweat had started forming on Mulder's forehead, and he saw Shelly anxiously swipe across her brow with the back of her sleeve as she began to perspire as well.

Trying not to think of how completely insane this all was, she gave Mulder a crash course on how to assist her if they needed to use the defibrillator. She didn't need to mention that in this situation, it would be pass or fail.

"Alright," she said tensely as she prepared to push what she hoped was the right dosage of the right drug into Scully's IV tube. Across from her, Mulder gave an encouraging nod. He was alert and ready to move if needed, but his hand was still clutching his partner's.

Shelly watched the heart monitor as the solution dripped into the IV bag, slowly entering Scully's bloodstream. Though Scully's face remained still, her eyes half-closed; her body tensed, her back arching ever so slightly off the mattress. The steady beeping of the machine tracking her pulse started to rise in tempo, becoming increasingly frantic in its beat. Mulder's heartbeat quickened right along with it, his body tensing as he glanced from his partner's unresponsive face to Dr. Hilton's, waiting for the sign to act.

After a moment, the beeping steadied and Scully fell still, settling deeper into the bed with a long, slow exhalation of breath.

At this, Shelly relaxed, giving Mulder a weak smile before stepping back from the bed. Mulder let out the breath he'd been holding, releasing Scully to run his hands over his face. After a moment, he looked back up at the doctor.

"What now?" he was almost afraid to ask.

She shook her head slightly to indicate that it was out of her control "Now we wait for her to wake up," She said simply. "I want to take a couple blood samples over to the lab to make sure there's nothing I missed here. You should stay with Dana. She should be stable now, but if anything happens, call my cell phone."

She started walking away, but turned back when she got to the door.

"I'll bring a suture kit to stitch up that bullet hole in your side," she said with a knowing glance at his shirt. "So be ready to sit still for a few moments when I get back."

Mulder managed a grateful smile before sinking back down in the chair beside the bed. After a moment, Shelly slipped out and closed the door behind her with a quiet click.

When she was gone, Mulder took his partner's hand again, rubbing gently across her knuckles with his thumb. Barely conscious, Scully murmured a soft noise of gratitude and grasped his hand back weakly.

Tiredly, Mulder stared down at her, determined to sit in vigil until she woke. But as he sat waiting for her eyes to open, the steady metronome of the heart monitor lulled away all focused thought from his mind and his own eyelids started to droop. He jerked back upright several times, trying to fight it, but eventually his exhaustion won out. When Shelly peeked back into the room less than an hour after she'd left, Mulder was fast asleep, snoring lightly into Scully's stomach.